


Heavy Metals

by LadyProto



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Ardyn x Prompto if you like torture, Backstory, Biblical References, Blood, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, Character Study, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Cutting, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everything Hurts, Finger Sucking, Friendship or bfs is up to the reader, Gen, Hurt, Imperial!Prompto, Knifeplay, MT!Prompto, Memories, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Coercion, Mental Instability, Non-Consensual Kissing, Physical Abuse, Pls comment I seek validation, Promptis - Freeform, Promptis if you squint, Psychological Torture, Self-Esteem Issues, This was supposed to be short what happened, Torture, Transformation, absurdly juicy tangerines, character backstory, i won't judge you dude., mentions of eating disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-18 19:24:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9399305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyProto/pseuds/LadyProto
Summary: Is it better to out monster the monster or  be quietly devoured?((Torture fic with Mt!prompto. Tons and tons of character backstory. Explores his linage, his purpose, and what Ardyn did to Prompto to make him ask "is this real?"))EDIT SOMEONE DREW ME FANART:https://h3llyfish.tumblr.com/post/158037874206/blows-kiss-to-yourscientistfriend-for-your-fic





	1. Iron

" I find it odd you kept your given name."

Prompto knew that voice from somewhere. It was low and penetrating into his skull and It nested like parasites at the most primitive part of his brain. His body reacted automatically, the long dormant conditioning forcing his muscles into burning convulsions as he was yanked back into the waking world.

"Granted the name has been bastardized, but the Lucian kingdom tends to sully everything with their dirty hands." 

The voice continued, cutting into Prompto’s brain as easily as knives into flesh. Prompto bit his lip, chewing off the dead dehydrated skin until blood smeared over his mouth, joining the already crusted blood from his broken nose. He had assumed himself forgotten again, this time chained in place against the floor with heavy weighted shackles. Had it been hours? Days? Weeks? He wasn’t sure anymore. Prompto tried to lift his head, his neck lolling under the weight of his rattling skull as he faded in and out of consciousness. 

Red film covered his eyes, something he hadn’t seen since he was a kid. It didn’t drip like blood, but hovered thick like something darker, covering his retina like mist. He blinked it away and saw gray. He had started to hate the color gray. It was everywhere. The gray concrete and metal frames of his prison. Gray floors, gray walls, gray thoughts. The world was empty. There was nothing but Ardyn in his technicolor garb that stuck to his vision like an infection of maroons and hunter greens. 

Ardyn had made his dominance known, perched upon the generations old throne of Nifelheim. His touch must have been poison because the plush, rich colors had faded to muted tones like everything else around him. He regarded his prisoner as an afterthought; instead putting his focus on carving into the flesh of a plump tangerine as he continued his rambling soliloquy. “Even their food wilts.” 

Prompto strained against the chains but his shackles never even rattled. He was solidly anchored in a contortionist nightmare, his full weight crushing on his kneecaps. His thin legs sprawled out in unnatural positions under his hips. He was trapped, curled forward until the ridges of his spine pushed through skin and clothing like clean rows of tombstones He tried to lift his bruised ribs from his knees, only to find his arms had been chained above his head. . His last strained effort to move exploded from his lungs in guttural cloud of exhaustion. He was forced to accept it: he was completely immobile, an object in the eyesight of a demon. A dark cloud of realization settled over him, and Prompto looked up at his captor with shining, pleading eyes. 

Ardyn turned to smile wickedly at Prompto’s pathetically upturned face. “But Niflheim has the most luscious fruit, don’t you think?”. Fingers deftly worked a small silver knife, but his movements looked inhuman. He was too fluid, too flexible, like his digits shape shifted with every rolling movement as he sliced the tangerine neatly down the middle. 

Prompto watched in morbid fascination as Ardyn ate. Each bite small and calculated even as juice dribbled down his chin and left his stubble sticky. It almost seemed like it was his own flesh Ardyn was biting into with sharp canines. . Ardyn pulled his lips away, leaving stringy strands of the fruit hanging from his teeth. 

Prompto felt his mouth go dry. How long had he been here without food or water? Between the haze of unconsciousness and pain, he’d only thought about his friends. He hadn't realized till now how hungry, thirsty and empty he was behind his bruised ribs. Gastric juice clawed at the lining of his stomach as he nursed the remaining saliva from his cheeks until his mouth turned to cotton. 

Ardyn had noticed, of course. He was Pavlov and Prompto had been made to drool. “But fear not. There's no need to suffer here.” Ardyn’s voice was warm and dripping like honey that lures flies to their sweet, sticky death. He walked over to his prisoner, long layers of unkempt clothing swaying behind him. “Eat.” He commanded, holding the fruit out as an offering. Juice flowed in between Ardyn’s cupped fingers as he knelt down to Prompto’s level. 

Juices dripped sweet and dreamy from the top of orange fruit flesh, tempting Prompto despite Ardyn’s icy breath of death against his neck.  
Prompto’s tongue cracked from dehydration and he felt his stomach shrivel up into his chest. He shifted against the heavy chains, denying his own body’s screams for nourishment. “You're trying to poison me.” He croaked. 

Ardyn’s smile was sticky and acidic as he once again offered forth the forbidden fruit. “I’m not a cruel man.” Ardyn sounded almost disappointed at the notion. He waved the fruit teasingly close to Prompto’s face, watching the boy drool at the scent. “You’ll want to energy when Noctis comes to rescue you. Now. Eat.” 

Maybe he was that thirsty. Maybe he was that pathetically easy to manipulate, but there was something about that voice that made Prompto’s body automatically react. The fruit wasn’t close enough to get a proper bite so he pushed his tongue out submissively, more than ready to lap up the offering of fresh juice from the hand of the devil. 

Just as Prompto’s tongue touched the fruit, Ardyn swiftly pulled it away. “Ah, silly me. I forgot. You don’t eat. This would go wasted on you.” Ardyn didn’t stand, instead leaving just enough space so that Prompto could could stare longingly at the wasted tangerine. 

Prompto tried to pull pleas from his parched throat but all that came out was the creaking sound of emptiness. Prompto was left neglected and wanting, the maddening scent of citrus fruit still danced in his nostrils. His mouth opened and closed like a beached fish before he weakly returned his gaze to the floor. It wasn’t like he could move from where he was chained to the floor. He had had years of practice playing submission. Taking up less space, be less threatening, be less of an MT. Just being less. So he tried to keep his eyes averted, praying his lack of reaction would bore Ardyn.

“Shhh. I won't tell anyone.” Ardyn reached out to pet Prompto’s face, fingers like spiders sliding under the boy’s chin, lifting him until their eyes met. The light touch of nails scratched like roach legs sending Prompto shuddering in disgust. Prompto prayed for the red film to come again, just so he wouldn’t have to see Ardyn’s ungroomed stubbled face covered in sticky fruit juices. “Though I wonder, if they really were your friends why haven’t they noticed by now? It's not hard to see. Every day you become smaller, thinner, weaker. It’s only a matter of time till-” Ardyn’s voice grew softer in emphasis before he crushed the partial fruit in his fist, releasing juices in streams down his wrist. “-You’ll disappear.” 

Prompto said nothing, did nothing, was nothing as he let the silence buzz in his ears. Juices dripped forming tiny puddles on the broken tiles. They joined the blood from his nose and mouth and mixed together like grimy paints under his knees. 

“So which one is it? Do you just forgo eating, or do you vomit it up afterwards?” 

Desperate, sick fear simmered in the pit of Prompto’s stomach as Ardyn’s words cut like broken mirrors. Prompto continued to remain silent, staring deeply into the gray sea of tile. Juice, blood and sweat made black mud with forgotten dust.

"You really should look at someone when they speak to you. Have you lost all your manners?" Ardyn taunted.

Again, Prompto stayed silent.

“Or is your throat really that dry?”

Prompto didn’t have time to react before Heavy, sticky hands were pressed against his face. Fingers pried at his cracked lips and nails broke against teeth as Ardyn wormed his juice covered fingers into Prompto’s throat, digging deeper, pushing harder. He couldn't move against the heavy chains but Ardyn pushed against his forehead until his spine contorted like a snake. 

Prompro couldn't breath. His nose was blocked. His throat spasmed around the fullness. He couldn't breathe. Is this what dying felt like? He couldn't fucking breathe. His tongue tried to push out the intrusion but it sent him dry heaving instead. Nails scratched him from the inside, and the citric acid dripping from Ardyn’s fingers stung his esophagus. He managed a gasp and his lungs burned. He tried to scream, but it came out as a guttural slew of desperation and dry heaves. A firey desire to live made his hands pull against the chain and the shackles dug into flesh and bones. It hurt. Oh god did he hurt. He gurgled around the appendages in his mouth. 

Ardyn was everywhere, on him like a shadow, pressing himself into Prompto’s body. It was so wrong but it felt familiar to Prompto on a level that he didn’t understand. He hated it, but something small and burning on the inside told him this is how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to be on his knees for the empire’s leader. It was like he was born for it. Like he was made for Ardyn.

Ardyn withdrew his slick digits from Prompto’s mouth calmly, even as the boy's lungs rattled in desperation. “Ah. No gag reflex. I suppose we know the answer, then.” He sat back on his knees and studied Prompto with sick amusement as the boy struggled in and out of the chokehold of unconsciousness. “Or have you been having a bit of fun with the Prince?”

Prompto struggled with his weakened muscles. His lungs shuddered, as he gagged and sputtered from the intrusion. He wanted to claw at his throat and get the taste of Ardyn out of his mouth. “What do you want from me?” He croaked, shuddering from the aftershock. He once again found himself staring at the grayness of the floor, only this time the lack of oxygen made diamonds glitter in the firmament. He couldn’t muster the energy to fight any longer. Every breath seemed to burn his nostrils. It was over but he couldn’t seem to get enough air.

He went slack with only the chains to keep him supported. Redness covered his eyes and in a last burst of strength he made the iron chains shift .

“Very good, Quicksilver,” Ardyn purred.

And his mind faded to gray.


	2. Copper

_“Quicksilver.” The name was chirped like a bird’s song in the early spring morning. He was too young to see her face clearly, but he remembered his mother as golden haired and robed in saffron like the sun. It was her beams of light that crowned his tiny head and her subtle warmth that ran his soul._

_Baby Prompto’s eyes glowed like starlight as he tried to catch the rosy finger of dawn’s palette. He was a creature of the night, an infant that stirred only when the sun dipped below the horizon. Constellations danced across his face, clusters of darkness forming abstract shapes that stirred imaginations. His tiny body was heaven’s dark canvas, painted by the hands of science._

_He looked up at his mother’s weary face as she clung to the thin hours of dawn. She rejoiced in the sparse moments of twilight where the dark and light coexisted. Her soft yellow hues spread thin as day gave birth to evening and inch by inch the light faded. Night came and day died by darkness’s hand. It was three seconds until midnight._

_My baby, you took my baby, where is_ -.

“Quicksilver.”

The golden memory dissipated like a bubble meeting a needle as reality’s heavy, rusted fingers dragged Prompto back into consciousness with a surge of pain. He was in some type of cage or kennel -- some kind of holding tank too small to be a cell. He was face down, with his full weight pressed against his bruised ribs and throbbing temple. His already hollowed cheeks deformed further against the cold concrete underneath him. Coarse sand and worn rock granules scraped his skin as he weakly shuddered. Reality was still gray and cold, but at least the coolness of the floor provided some relief to his battered body.

“-Who after eating with the Lucis swine, can once again dine on the finery of his father’s house-”

That voice again. Even through the thick fog of hunger and fatigue, that voice followed Prompto. He weakly pushed himself up with his aching forearms, shoulders popping with the shift in weight. His vertebrae cracked in hissing waves as he moved slowly, steadily. He squeezed his eyes tightly against the dizziness and nausea that coated the back of his mouth. “You…” Prompto finally sat up. The grit and sand that had been matted into his forehead with cold sweat shook loose and tangled into his eyelashes. “You're the voice inside my head.”

“Ah, what a clever lad.” Prompto wiped the debris from his face as sand landed against the freckles on his raw cheeks. He opened his eyes to see Ardyn speaking to him from the other side of thick steel bars. Ardyn had made himself comfortable, not on the throne this time but with his legs dangling over the armrest of an old wooden chair. He absentmindedly played with some small black trinket as he spoke. “Nice to see you awake, my prodigal son.”

“W-what?” Prompto steadied his voice as much as he could as he spoke to his captor from his prison. He felt safer with the insects and decay inside his cage than he did when Ardyn had full access to him, but still the man’s voice seemed to have its own presence. It hovered around him, digging its tendrils into his ears and rearranging his brain.

“The son of the empire needs a reward, yes?” Ardyn’s boots hit the ground, crunching the debris underfoot as he stood. He locked Prompto in his predatory gaze as he nodded towards what appeared to be two small metal tins at the foot of the chair. They were small, almost like the dog food bowls Prompto had once used to feed Chibi. One was filled with something red and the other with a chunk of bread. “A peace offering. A welcome home feast, if you will.”

Prompto looked up at his capture with narrow eyes.“I’m not falling for that again. You'll take it from me.“ The words came out more pitiful than he intended.

“I won't. I need you alive.” Ardyn assured. “You were too weak to give me what I needed last time. It was an oversight on my part.” He dug the toe of his boot into two metal cans before kicking them towards Prompto’s cell. Aluminum scraped across concrete in a shrill screech and clanged against the bars. Prompto jumped at the impacted. “Eat.” Ardyn commanded.

Prompto wanted to say no. He didn’t want to be alive -- at least not for Ardyn. But carnal hunger and conditioned servitude made him obey. Prompto gingerly crept forward. With slit like pupils he masterfully tracked Ardyn’s movements, but with tensed legs he was ready to bound back into his burrow. Like a worm, he kept his concave belly to the ground but like a wolf he bared his teeth at any who would take his food. The red film was over his eyes again, staining everything with the vision of heated copper blood. He was both predator and prey. Ardyn looked on with an almost loving smile.

Prompto cautiously reached through the bars and clawed his fingers around the rim of the food bowls. With snapping jaws he scuttled back into safety, twitching with nervous delight as he picked through the offering. It was stale, unleavened bread and some type of burgundy wine -- a feast for the starved and beaten. He clutched the bread with greedy fingers, nibbling with fevered, twitchy bites. The bread was dry and irritated his already raw throat but he didn't care. He was so empty, like he was a child again, just eating and eating but never satisfied. There had always been something else he craved, some vital _something_ that a Crown City diet couldn’t provide for him. He needed the taste of copper coating his teeth and shooting through his neurons like cold lightning. He grabbed for the wine, throwing his head back and gulping it down so fast he couldn’t taste. The alcohol from the wine burned where Ardyn’s fingers had scratched inside him, knocking the air from his lungs. There were tears in his eyes, blood in his throat and precious dry bread in his stomach. He had never felt so lovely and full in his life, even when he had used to binge.

The darkness inside Prompto lazily curled in satisfaction as he went for the last drink. He was warm, basting in the afterglow of a violent catharsis with pure fulfillment. The aftertaste of smokey tannin-filled wine placed a fog of contentment over his senses. He had always delighted in food prepared bloody and raw. He had only been half-kidding the times he’d suggested eating something dead as a celebration of being alive. Even Ignis had made steaks rare for him.

_Ignis. Gladio. Noctis._

Prompto spat the saliva out of his mouth, trying to rid himself of the lingering bits of taste. He let his mouth hang open and used his tongue to push out half chewed scraps of wine soaked bread. “What did you do to me?” It had been only for a moment but he’d lost his humanity. He brought awareness back to his body and saw he had been hunched over like some kind of gollum while he had ate. “What did you do to me?!” He repeated in quiet horror. “Did you drug me? Was this blood?”

“What makes you think I can bleed?” Ardyn laughed almost pleasantly in response as he walked closer to the bars, still toying with the trinket in his hand. Whatever he had seen had left him satisfied. Humiliation crawled like spiders up Prompto’s skin.

“What do you want?” His voice cracked in desperation. Dark red wine stained his hands and trickled down his shirt like blood. Everything was red, dripping copper. He held his hands away from his body like they were a separate entity. What would happen if his friends could see him now? Would Noctis choke him again? Would Ignis be able to smell the stench of bitter blood and wine? Maybe Gladios would do them all a favor and kill Prompto out of mercy. Maybe they had already figured out his secret. Maybe that was the reason why Noct had snapped on the train.

“ _What’re you after, following me around this whole time?!”_

_“It’s all YOUR fault!”_

Ardyn's toxic voice brought Prompto back into reality. "I believe the question is who.”

"Who do you want?" Repeating Ardyn had come naturally. He didn’t have to think in order to repeat. He slowly lifted his widen gaze from his red fingertips and looked up at Ardyn expectantly.

"Well, It's certainly not you."

"Noctis?"

  
"Oh, not quite.” Ardyn’s hypnotic, taunting stare never wavered. Smug amusement dripped from his voice like acid. “I believe I fancy a chat with Quicksilver.” He tossed the little trinket into Prompto’s cell.

Prompto’s reflexes failed him as the leather band landed at his feet. His thoughts jittered as he struggled to understand. It was his own thick leather wrist band -- the one he had used for years to cover his bar code -- lying broken between his muddy boots. He instinctively brought his wrist in front of him and found it bare. “W-what?”

Ardyn bared teeth. “Welcome home, Quicksilver.”

The world felt colder as Prompto paled. His jaw dropped open as the name bounced in his skull. Quicksilver. The word roared in time with his pulse. He could practically feel the words come to life and rechain him. Each syllable became another piece of heavy, magitek armor that wrapped around his extremities like snakes, binding him tighter and tighter until it squeezed out the light. “That’s not me. That’s not my name. I-” The words dropped from his mouth quicker than his brain could process. It was a well rehearsed denial, but his trembling lips betrayed the truth.

Prompto fell back into his nervous habit of rubbing his skin, as if he could erase the markings. He used to do the same as a child, chafing his hands until he took off the first layer of skin, leaving raw red blisters on his wrists. But the tattoo always stayed. Even taking a knife to the inked skin hadn't erased the code. It was embedded in him, far deeper than he understood, deeper than he was comfortable with anyone reaching. And Ardyn had seen it, studied it, _touched it._ “Y-you don't know me.”

“Don't I?” Ardyn cocked his head. Something about Ardyn seemed to unravel the space around him. Reality around the two blurred, and all that remained was a sadist master and his groveling servant. “Quicksilver: the first and only MT born from a human woman. Your father’s beloved assistant, though she thought less of him.”

“But I'm not-” Prompto’s wrist was exposed to the world. Black lines stood stark against his paleness like scraggly barren trees in winter snow. It was ink injected deep into muscle and bone, but it burned like a brand. More so than when he was choking, more so than when he was being beaten; he felt the terror of being bare and helpless “I'm me. I’m Prompto.” His voice raised higher as the lies tangled with sobs in his throat. He tried to brainwash himself with repetition. “M-my name is Prompto Argentum. I'm the child of a hunter that died protecting the citadel.”

“The hunter found you starving and covered in bugs in a cave in Fociaugh Hollow.” Ardyn shot down. “Oh, but do continue. It would be unfair to stop your lies before they're complete.”

“N-no I'm me. I'm Prompto. Quicksilver was --” Prompto’s breath hitched. The tears didn't come at first, but his entire body shuddered with sobs. One by one Prompto felt his body’s processes shut down. His face went slack, his muscles refused to obey. He sat there, watching as Ardyn slowly dissected him piece by bloody piece, tearing skin away to show the horrible origin story underneath. This had been his secret and his secret alone. Noctis, Gladio, Ignis -- his best friends never suspected. All he ever wanted was to belong, to feel real. But the charade was over now and he was back to being a droid of the empire. The first tear fell as Prompto rattled out hot, damp sobs. He hadn’t felt so achingly disgusting in a long time. Dread seized his stomach and shame assaulted his cheeks. His own touch was repulsive when he tried to cradle himself. He folded himself smaller on his knees, rocking as his eyesight blurred with tears.“Quicksilver was my MT name.” Prompto sniffled, looking up through damp eyelashes.

“It is your proper Nifelheim name.” Ardyn corrected. “And a child of Nifelheim has just returned home to claim his birthright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter has a title drop!
> 
> As always, you can submit questions or comments at http://yourscientistfriend.tumblr.com/


	3. Quicksilver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *waits for someone to point out the obvious character point here*

  
_“Don't you think it's cruel?” She said in a rare moment where she had found her voice. It came creaky and forlorn like decrepit baseboards from homes long abandoned and not at all like the silver bells he'd imagined in his head during his fantasies. “They were living their lives peacefully before you came.”_

_“An insect has a short life, girl,” Verstael answered, goblin-like and and gravely as he continued to work with vials of star scourge blood. It'd been so long since she'd heard her own name, he wondered if she could even remember the sound. “That’s the cruelty of the gods, not me.”_

_She stared wistfully at the butterflies preserved underneath the glass. They had been slaughtered, wings spread apart and pinned for experimental observation. The once great Monarch with wings golden like fertile wheat was now held immobile by metal prongs. The giantess Alexandra’s lively blue iridescence was now faked by garish lighting.Their gossamer wings had never been clipped, but they'd been made useless all the same. They’d been turned to nothing more than pretty things to observe with quite, detached speculation and colorful idealist fancies. “They had mates.” She said quietly as she barely touched the glass top with her blunted fingernails. “They would have wanted to go together.”_

_“Such philosophy is unbecoming of a prisoner of war.” He stated flatly. “Just take a pretty picture for me, will you?”_

_“Of course, Dr. Besithia.” She doesn't huff nor complain -- prisoners weren’t allowed that luxury -- but he felt her resolve grow like fire as she reached for the camera. Dutifully, she snapped pictures of the speckled wingspans and striped bodies as they mingled with unnerving monstrosities that had hatched with darkened, wisp like antenna. It was a test garden; every specimen had been designed by the hand of science and birthed from carefully concocted mutagens. Her film captured the progression of their experimental design as monarch butterflies slowly became thinner and darker until their wings looked like something barely solid enough to pin down._

_It's from the same swirling darkness that Verstael planned to bring forth child soldiers. The infants would not be created from dirt and clay, but immaculately conceived in the sterility of autoclaved petri dishes and incubated in the crystal clear glass jars of mechanical wombs. As a scientist, he needed no gods nor women to create life._

_But as a man he wanted more._

_Verstael turned to her, and through the rosy obsession he saw the next Eve, another Mary -- an immaculate incubator for the next gods. He had wanted any girl of breeding age and in the ruins of a razed village they had found her crying over the charred remains of her husband. She was as beautiful and tragic as the butterflies pinned under glass, but strong like thin invisible steel. He would have her - by force or coercion he didn't care. He watched her with hungry eyes._

_She summoned butterflies as she walked, and they dressed her in gossamer gowns made from their own wings. “What’s this one made from?” She asked as a solid blood-red butterfly kissed her cheek. It’s wings beat fast and panicky, but it didn't seem to fear her. “Heavy metals?”_

_“Quicksilver.” He answered, as he obsessively watched the light in her eyes dance. “Mercury added during the gestation period.”_

_“Quicksilver.” She muttered it to herself. “This is my favorite.”_

\---

Wake up - take three. Prompto knew Ardyn would be standing there when he opened his eyes. He expected monologues and brutal mental torture while Ardyn made rambling poetry from obscure fairy tales and ancient religions. But when Prompto opened his eyes it was not the chancellor he saw, but his own dear friend studying him with scrunched eyebrows and downturned lips.

“Dude!” Despite his aching ribs, Prompto let out a huge breath as a slow smile formed on his busted lips. It was Noctis. His best friend, Noctis. He had come for him. Prompto had to repeat it in his head several times to make sure it was real. Noctis must have released him from his bonds already, because his arms were free to reach up for Noctis with needy grasping motions. “You came! He told me you wouldn't!”

“I'm here,” Noctis reassured. “It’s really me.”

Prompto didn’t realize he was crying until his vision blurred. It wasn’t thick heavy sobs from pain but light watery tears of relief. Noctis came! He hadn’t left Prompto to rot after the argument on the train. His body felt lighter, and for the first time since he had been captured, he was allowed to stand. He moved as swiftly his battered body would allow and joyously threw his arms around Noctis’s neck, resting his weary head on sturdy shoulders.“Dude you won't believe-”

Noctis should have been warm. He had always burned like a furnace from the crystal’s power that coursed through him -- so much that they used to joke about using the Prince as a personal space heater. But when Prompto embraced Noctis, he felt none of that pleasant warmness. Instead, Prompto shivered against the frozen chill from the Prince’s skin. “There's a lot of things I'm having trouble believing.” Noctis’s voice was deep and gravely.

Prompto dropped his arms heavily and stepped backwards, unconsciously touching his own neck. That was the same tone Noctis had used back on the train. He could still feel Noctis’s elbow embedded into the base of his throat. “Noct, please...can't we just talk for a sec?” The look of murderous rage that had haunted Prompto was back again, only with less fire and more cold determination. Prompto could handle fire. He had seen it in himself, in Gladio and in Noctis. Fiery anger burned itself out quickly, with the fallout being something easy like a busted vase or cracked screen. But he didn't know how to handle the permafrost that was slowly encasing his friend.

Noctis sternly shook his head. “I know what you are.”

Prompto’s jaw and heart dropped to the floor. Logically, he knew this day would come, but logic was a weak whisper compared to the the utter dread roaring in his stomach. Fearful adrenaline punched holes in his clarity, but his first instinct was still to deny. “W-what are you talking about, man.” He stuttered out through his tensed jaw. This was fate, right? Like in the video games where the heroes walk tall to their inevitable ending. Prompto had been slated for destruction since the day he was created, and to see his bloody corpse would be Noctis’s measure of success. The world would be happier without magitek monstrosities around to terrorize the people. But Prompto had kept a small flickering flame of hope alive in his chest, that maybe, with the help of the Astrals, Noctis would never know or better still, never care. It was inevitable, but it hurt worse than any torture.

“You know what I’m talking about, Quicksilver.”

“No! No! It's me! Prompto!” He's had to convince the world of his humanity so many times that his name had lost its meaning in his own head. He'd murmured it in desperation while Ardyn pried apart his psyche. He'd kept it on loop in his brain as a child as he brainwashed himself into his new identity. Now he used it as a plea to what should have been his best friend. He fell back into the habit of tugging on his wrist. “I'm your friend. You’re…still my friend too, right?”

“Then how you could do this to us!?” Noctis hissed through his teeth. His hands twitched in tiny scratching motions in an attempt to keep his armiger at bay.

“What are you talking about? I haven't done anything!” Prompto had backed away six feet or so, but the two were effectively worlds apart. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Prompto hadn’t done enough. He’d been tagging along unwanted for years. He’d always nursed that fear in the bottom of his stomach, that terrible dread that they’d get tired of him eventually. And he would have deserved it. He wasn't strong like Gladio, or smart like Ignis. He wasn't royalty like Noct. He was dead weight, and it was a hell of a lot of weight to drag along. “You’ve never talked like this before….”

“That’s because I know everything now!” Noctis stalked across the room, closer to Prompto. His shadow loomed large, larger than it should have been given Noctis’s size and the dimness of the room around him. He snatched Prompto’s wrist, twisting his arm until it spiraled. Prompto's already weakened shoulder sockets popped and tore as he was forced to bow and bend to the Prince. “You're one of them!” Noctis growled, almost inhuman in its depth. He pressed Prompto’s boney fingers forward, exposing the vulgar markings to the world. “What did you do? Did you hurt Ignis? Did you kill Jared?!”

“What?! No! Noct I would never -” He never finished his words before Noctis twisted harder. Prompto yelped and hissed as the head of his arm bone clips against his clavicle. His mind turned to static as bones scraped against bone. His breath wallowed at the base of his throat, his voice creaking into a wail. His shoulder pulsed red, hot pain that radiated up to his ears and down to his ribs. He didn't manage a scream, just small pathetic hisses from his clenched teeth. Prompto’s left hand gripped the ground, desperately trying to claw away from Noctis’s grasp.

Noctis released his grip, sending Prompto stumbling into the wall. His head bounced off the blocks, the impact sends colorful fireworks shooting behind his eyes. It still wasn't enough to wake him from this nightmare. The last few days -- weeks? He didn't know --he'd been played with like a marionette, lifted and toyed with, then left collapsed and forgotten with tangled threads. He'd been pulled in and out of consciousness, given hope, then left to starve.

Prompto tried to move his arm, but it laid limp and lose from his socket. He squeezed his eyes against the pain, inhaling sharply in an attempt to suck himself into a deeper place to cope. In his head he saw everyone together again. The stains of time had been removed and the boys they used to be were on their eternal road trip. Prompto, Noctis, Ignis and Gladio were in the Regalia, the smell of sunlit leather lulling them into a familiar comfort. It was back to innocence, back when they were just a group of friends traveling to a wedding with hopeful, bright eyes. If he had known it would come to this, he would have sabotaged the car himself in order to spare them the rest of their short painful lives. All he wanted now was to curl up and sleep forever. Maybe he would have dreams of when they were just four boys playing games on their cell phones.

When Prompto opened his eyes again, he was punched with the cold grayness of what his world had become. Everything inside of Prompto toppled like dominoes and tears burst forth like a dam breaking. Raw, painful sobs clawed through his burning lungs. He couldn't do this. He couldn't be alive anymore. “I don't want it!” Prompto cried as he fell to his knees. He'd never bowed to the prince before but Prompto had been abandoned on the floor so many times that he started to feel like he belonged there. He willingly dug his broken fingernails into his own flesh, and three trails of blood welled up across his wrist, making crosses with black ink. “I’ve never wanted it! I don't want it! Take it away!”

Prompto sniffled -- he hated when he sniffled. He sounded like he did when he was a child, when the nightmares were less abstract images and more fresh retellings of experiments gone wrong. He remembered waking up cold, paralyzed and naked, screaming into the walls of the empty house. He was always so alone. His adopted dad had never been home -- It was the cruel reality of being a child of a hunter. Noct had been this abstract idea of perfection: a thin, attractive kid with affection heaped onto him from every corner. It seemed creepy now, his longing to be part of his world. Maybe that resentment had slowly festered inside Noctis. Maybe that explained how utterly wrong this version of Noctis was behaving. Prompto looked up with features as loose and limp as his dislocated arm. He couldn't even muster a frown. “Please, Noct. Make it stop. Please. Take it away.”

Noctis’s lips curled so fluidly that Prompto couldn't tell if it was a smile or a sneer. Their world had changed so much and so fast that Prompto couldn't even recognize basic emotions on his best friend. Prompto stared up with quivering doe-eyes as Noctis stood over him, invading his space and covering his vision with his torso. “God, you’re so pathetic.” The ice never melted from Noctis’s stare. “But I can make it better.”

Noctis crouched down to Prompto’s level, capturing his gaze with his own. Prompto expected a moment of understanding, a callback to when they'd meet eyes and share a knowing glance at some juvenile inside joke, but instead he feels pinned, like butterflies under glass. Noctis’s eyes intensely searched for something inside of Prompto, as if he could strip away his skin and sink into the soul Prompto wasn't sure he had. Of course he could cry and crawl, bleed and break, but what if it all an act? He was Quicksilver before he was Prompto, and Ignis had told him more than once that MTs don't have souls.

Noctis reached out to pet Prompto’s hollow cheek, and Prompto fell heavily into the touch. Prompto was so tired of having to fight. He pressed into Noctis’s palm like a stray cat begging for scraps of affection. He closed his eyes and smelled tangerine on Noctis’s skin.

They both hated tangerines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *patiently waits for someone to say the thing about Noct*
> 
> Next chapter should be the last, with maybe an epilogue at the end. It may take more than my usual week to whip up tho.


	4. The Amalgam

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! My beta was sick and I had a very rough time at work!
> 
> Cw: Dubcon kiss  
> Non sexual blood play  
> Implied sexual abuse between Promptos parents.  
> \-----

_It was amongst the dirty glassware and chemical waste that he created death incarnate. It was not an immaculate conception, but vulgar and obscene. Her tears tasted like fatality as he condemned her to the lab’s bench top, pinning her hands with sturdy arms. Quicksilver was conceived as a product of resigned servitude and unholy obsession, a child made from bloody war and violent hate, a soldier from corrupted science and incurable disease._  
\----

“Are you afraid?”

Prompto drooped like dirty laundry into Noctis's hand. He felt boneless, like some shapeless goo that was only being held together by Noctis's palm against his cheek. He didn’t answer at first, instead showing his servitude by nibbling on the fingers Noctis offered. Truthfully, he had been scared of waking up every morning since Altissia. There by the ancient waterways and classical era courtyards, their bonds had shattered like the cobblestone streets under Leviathan's wrath. Ardyn had done this to them. The gods had done this to them. Even now with the effigy of his friend looming over him now, he was afraid. How did a simple road trip turn into this? 

They had all been fractured, some more than others. Noctis had spent weeks in a coma and even longer puking up blood. Ignis’s face was raw like hamburger meat and, for once, Prompto hadn’t gotten excited by the sight of carnage. Gladio had punched walls and Iris had cried on the phone. The world was falling apart and Prompto had sat useless and forgotten behind the pillars, scared of his inability to help, scared of how dark his thoughts had become. How did it come to this? Prompto missed how they used to be. He missed Insomnia, and the bitter cherry taste of coming to age in the Crown City where everything was so electric and alive. He missed burnt pizza rolls and broken curfews with Noctis. He could still feel the deep whiskey burns from drinking with Gladio, and smell the smoky-seasoned flavors of ethnic food stalls with Ignis. It all felt so long ago now. Their innocence and normality had been leveled with the Citadel. Prompto took another digit in his already torn throat. 

All he could taste was tangerines.

“I said, are you frightened of me?” Noctis’s tone was wrong, his words antiquated. It was like reality had somehow fractured him and haphazardly thrown the bits and pieces back into a twisted hollow statue. But with all the pain they'd been through, maybe that’s exactly what had happened. 

Noctis’s eyes shined in madness as he moved to take Prompto’s dislocated arm into his free hand .Prompto growled at the pain, letting Noctis's fingers slip from his lips. Saliva smeared down his chin. “N-no,” He finally lied, trying to steady his voice and make the words stronger. He didn’t know what was going to happen to him, but he was determined to accept it and suffer as a penalty for his sin of simply being alive. “I’m not afraid.”

“Really now? Not at all?” Noctis sounded hurt. He quickly stood up, letting Prompto’s useless limb topple to the ground without a second thought. Prompto gasped as shocks waves pounded through his screaming body, radiating from his socket in rippling waves. He fell forward, his arm hanging loose and heavy underneath him as splotches of colors move nonsensically behind his brain like a kaleidoscope. He heard Noctis laugh in the distance, “Well, you always were the idiot among us.” 

With a flick of his wrist, Noctis summoned the swords of old, shattering the dark and silence. The armiger power spiraled around the two, trapping them together in a tornado of metallic grays and fluorescent scarlet. Bolts of lightning illuminated Noctis’s eyes. Torrents formed as the ancient weapons materialized from the nothingness and clanged together like thunder. Destruction howled forth as Noctis chuckled at the sound. “Let's see if we can change that, shall we?” 

“Noct…” Prompto grasped his arm, trying to smother the throbbing with his clenched fists. His brain fogged up and thoughts stalled. Through the pin-pricks of tears Prompto saw the armiger fade into a firefly-like glow. He'd always been in fearful awe of the armiger, like the devout feared and respected the powers of the Six. Even as he had watched wave after wave of other MTs meet their violent end at the ancient power, he felt a gnawing, sick fascination. But he couldn't say anything without revealing his secret, so he bit his lip and watched as twisted versions of himself fell by Noctis’s hand. Was this fate then? Some holy punishment for one MT not protecting his brethren? He was an MT like them. Why should Prompto be the one to escape punishment? 

He was just an MT.

The armiger slowed to a gentle spin around Noctis's body, the weapons bobbing up and down like some kind of dark carousel. His fingers danced lightly over the barely corporeal weapons. Noctis flung aside his usual favorites and settled on something dark and intimately familiar. Six inches of cold steel and a delicate ivory handle glittered in the dim light. It was that small silver knife, exactly like the one Ardyn had used to gut the tangerine.

“I- Noctis? What are you doing? Noct-” Prompto’s neck and head went rigid as his mind frosted over. Citric acid from no apparent source burned his eyes and clogged his nostrils. The vision of ripe fruit flesh and dripping juices seized him with terror. He could feel Ardyn’s fingers inside of him again, wiggling like worms in his throat. He choked on the memory of burning bitter wine. Prompto reached for his throat with his one good hand.

“I'm going to fix you.” Noctis said simply. 

Sudden clarity ignited like bright lights in Prompto’s head. Noctis was going to carve out that barcode line by line, layer by layer, skin from muscle, muscle from bone. “No. No, man, it’s not going to work. I’ve tried. I-” Words tumbled out with no coherent thought. He struggled to strengthen his stance on his knees, but the room was small and his body weak and broken. He couldn’t coordinate himself to do anything more than make a pathetic crawl away from Noctis’s shadow. His best friend was going to mutilate him and Prompto knew he would deserve every slice and scream. He trembled like a rabbit. 

It took mere seconds for Noctis to close the gap between them, his boots planted firmly on either side of Prompto’s hips. There was no escape. Prompto’s eyes frantically darted around Noctis's face, trying to make certain that this was indeed the Prince. How could this be the kid he used to skip school with? The same guy that fed neighborhood strays? Could Ardyn have brainwashed him? Or had Noctis really grown so cruel? Prompto sat back in his knees, pleading to Noctis with fearful tears. He both hoped and feared that Noctis would show no mercy. 

Noctis held Prompto’s useless wrist, bringing it gently up to his face to study the skin with mocking pity. He bent back Prompto’s fingers tenderly this time to expose the barcode. Old self-harm marks crisscrossed with inked lines, telling a story of a doomed Nif child and his inevitable fate. Scars crawled like silvery pink snakes along Prompto’s veins. It was as if he had tallied up every lonely moment by carving it into his body. They were his badges of self-hatred, the rips and re-mending of Prompto’s psyche that showed visibly on his skin. The three cross hatches scratched from earlier had begun to crust over. Noctis rubbed the damaged skin with the pad of his thumb, pulling the skin taut until the blood flowed again. “This will hurt worse.” It wasn’t a warning, but a promise. He dangled the knife in his right hand, resting the sharp blade lazily against skin. A single movement is all it would take for the cold steel to pierce.

Something primal jittered in fear of the promised pain. He needed to go somewhere dark, somewhere safe. Darkness was his cradle. By his genes, he was a predator: an MT from blood and darkness. But with Noctis hovering over him, pressing a knife to his skin, he felt like prey. “No, no, no- “Prompto tried to pull away, only making his dislocated shoulder scream. His shoulder and arm bones grinded again. Noctis held Prompto’s throbbing arm like a leash, snapping Prompto back into position between the wall and his hip. 

Prompto didn’t get a chance to plead again before the first slice. Cold steel slipped inside him easily, like body was ready to accept any punishment doled out. Hot blood swelled up in thick beads as flesh split. Prompto threw his head back against the block wall and screamed into the darkness “Fuck!” 

Noctis laughed, deep and intense. “I’ve barely touched you. The scars suggest you've done much worse to yourself in the past.” The blade wasn’t deep. Noctis was teasing him, like it was a twisted form of foreplay before the main event. Noctis trailed the knife softly down the first of many black tattooed lines. He was gentle -- almost sensual in the way he let gravity do the cutting for him. He pulled the knife cleanly from the skin and looked tenderly at the clean carving. he flicked the knife with a flourish, letting Prompto’s blood splatter on both of their faces.

Why was blood always so hot? It scalded against Promptos skin as he whimpered. He didn't have a right to cry so he tried to bite it back. His chin quivered like an upset child and he started to sniffle. This was only the start of the torture, and already Prompto was tired of fighting. He laid curled up under his friend and his Prince, ready to die. He'd always been so weak and worthless compared to the others. A king’s shield, the royal advisor, the chosen one -- he was dead weight. He was just a Nif.

He was just an MT.

The knife went in again. Prompto couldn’t see the damage it had done but he could feel it. God could he feel it. Skin broke with a small pop, and the knife punctured with a disgusting wet squish. The blade rounded the corner of the first bar as Noctis twisted the knife to change directions. The blade was sharp enough to cut through cleanly, but Noctis sawed just to watch Prompto scream.

Prompto howled against Noctis's hip. His fingers were numb. His wrist burned like fire. The noise in his head was reduced to dull buzzing as his vision clouded with red again. He lifted his head, eyes drunk on pain as he looked to Noctis for some kind of comfort, a validation, a sign that at least one of them was pleased by the carnage. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t move. He could only hold still and breathe, breathe slow and deep until it has passed. He wasn’t even sure he was stationed in reality until he heard Noctis’s deep throaty laugh. 

The knife had made it completely around the first darkened line of the tattoo. It fell again, turning skin into ribbons. Noctis twisted the knife deep, sliding sideways under the skin. Prompto's screams turned to shrieks, raw and real. Noct must have learned a lot from fishing because he filleted the skin perfectly, slicing off a ribbon of flesh. Stringy sinew pulled away like the pulpy strands of tangerines. Noctis tossed the bloody hide to the floor like garbage. 

The next cut didn’t come as quickly. Instead the knife fluttered back into the armiger like a little bloodied fairy. Noctis stepped back to admire his handiwork, smiling lightly at his creation like he was a sculptor and this was his masterpiece. Prompto could no longer scream. Scarlet blood bubbled from the wounds, turning into brisk stream of gore. It was coming too fast to congeal on its own and it fell to the ground fluidly. Every droplet took away more of his life, more of his clarity. He didn't move to cover his wound, though he vaguely recognized he was supposed to. His shoulder throbbed purple and bruised as his mind unraveled. The ebb and flow of insanity clutched Prompto like a fist. His eyes were glassy, but wide in horror. Saliva trailed from his mouth as if it took too much concentration to control his jaw. He was ashen and weak, but death eluded him. He was left alone with a burning wrist in a dark place, and it brought back bad memories for Quicksilver, but not Prompto because Prompto had buried Quicksilver long ago.

Prompto couldn't be bothered to react as Noctis took the mutilated flesh in both hands. Noctis savored the mess of gore with lidded eyes and parted lips as he brought the wrist up for a taste. He nibbled the skin along the dark tattooed bars before sucking on exposed wound with the desperation of a madman. Tongue parted mangled flesh as if it were the most exquisite mouth. He was drinking him, feeding off the agony of every painful memory. Noctis threaded his fingers through the twists of jagged blond hair and yanked until Promptos neck was exposed.

Prompto’s skull and neck crunched as Noctis pulled him closer. Without warning, Noctis slammed his lips into Prompto’s. Prompto sputtered as the wind was pushed from his lungs and came out as a hiss into Noctis’s mouth. Teeth jarred and foreheads crashed as Noctis’s lips pinned his victim. It could barely be called a kiss with how dominating and animalistically cruel he moved. Noctis took the slacked jaw as invitation and shoved his tongue into Prompto’s unprepared mouth. His tongue went in sloppy and wet, covered in copper blood and bits of skin. Prompto suffocated on the taste of citrus -- acidic, foul and dripping. They had never once kissed, never once messed around. This wasn't Noctis. But he looked like Noctis, sounded like Noctis, and maybe a very dark part of him wanted this to be Noctis. It finally felt like he was loved for once in his life. Someone loved him when he tasted of heartache and war. Maybe he should become heartache and war. Prompto’s grip on reality loosened further, but he had Noctis there. Having Noctis there to abuse him was better than having no friends at all. 

Prompto went limp as Noctis toyed with him. He was an MT. It would be fortunate if he was found useful for something. Even if it was this. His thoughts ran disorderly and chaotic. The pain, the fear -- it stripped him of his memory of being human. He can't fathom right from wrong. All that existed now was an MT and a Prince, Quicksilver and Noctis. They melted together until they both lost their individuality. They formed the useless amalgam of chemical poison and precious royal metals. Copper burned his mouth. Iron held him down. The concept of “human” fell further away. And Quicksilver finally stirred.

His name was Quicksilver. The words pressed heavy against his skull. He'd never called himself that before, at least not so willingly. He'd buried his past underneath a fake identity but now it was rearing its ugly head once more. Ardyn had stripped away layers of psyche until his fractured brain looked like Russian dolls that stack inside each other. Prompto was 20 on the outside, but inside he was 15 and heaving over the toilet with his fingers in his mouth. He could still feel the crushing loneliness of being 10 years old and coming home to an empty house and an injured puppy. He was still that dirty 4 year old, covered in bugs in a cave with a snake demon. But at his core he was so much simpler, so much smaller. His heart was one solid ball of fear and doubt. He can't remember how to walk. He can't remember how to breath. He was that Nif baby, a product of rape and hatred and his name was still-

“Quicksilver.”

It wasn't the twisted image of Noctis that spoke, but still the voice was familiar. It was embedded in his head like nails. He felt facial hair that shouldn't exist, and when Prompto eye fluttered open he saw hair the color of bitter wine. There stood Ardyn where Noctis had been just a millisecond before. Had Noctis even been there? Had it been Ardyn this whole time? Prompto stuttered. It hadn't been Noctis that had kissed him, but Ardyn. It hadn't been Noctis that had tortured him, but Ardyn. Ardyn had twisted him, cut him open, laid him bare. Ardyn had almost made him feel loved. Prompto reached towards his own head only to remember that he can barely move. He felt something imploding inside of him as his brain tried to comprehend what was happening. He had lost his mind. Lungs rattled in his chest. He couldn't breath. His body fought to simply die. His name was Prompto. His name was Quicksilver. “What the hell did you do to me? Where is Noctis?” His voice was deep, far deeper than he'd ever heard before. Demonic bass tones shook his own heart. 

Something primal, something hideous clawed against Prompto's stomach like a mad dog trying to escape its chains. He couldn't lie about it being stomach aches anymore. It was darkness. He was darkness. He was ripping from the inside out. Prompto doubled over, trying to keep the feeling contained. Feelings of dread erupted from his chest in waves. Trails of thick vapor seeped through human flesh. “Please, just tell me what's happening”. He must have lost his fucking mind because there was no other way he could think to describe the crushing, consuming, nothingness that was his memory, his life, himself.

Ardyn smirked at him, wiping blood and citrus juice from his mouth. “I was right. Nifelheim has the most luscious fruits. You just have to cut them open first.”

Prompto didn’t want to think about the implications. He didn’t want to think at all. His brain danced on the edge of life and death. A miniature black hole swirled at his brain stem, a self-sustaining storm. His mind ripped itself to shreds until only the basic tenants remained. Fight. Eat. His spine snapped back upright from the energy. Power surged into his eyes until they burst into red flames. His spine pushed through skin in clean rows. His skin was gone and now he was this _thing_ on the ground. He was a skittering spidery being made from complete absence of light. He wasn't just blackness, he was nothing at all. Is this what MTs looked like under their armor? This barely solid lump of murky depression and animalistic quivering fear? He was too human to be daemon, but at the same time, he was not human at all the way he staggers forward like a mechanical puppet.

His name was Quicksilver, but underneath all the filth, Prompto screamed.


	5. Toxicity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw:  
> sexualized violence (someone killing someone and the tone is a little sexual)  
> Fantasies of Cannibalism  
> Bugs  
> Gore and corpses  
> Moar Tangerines (because my reviewers seem to like it)  
> Baby Prom’s love of the chocobo song has a dark beginning.  
> \--

_  
There was a baby on the cold ground._

_Ardyn looked down at the thing presented before him. He remembered when he was a lad -- a good 2000 years ago or more -- when people would present the newborns to the head of the household for acceptance or refusal. It was a formality, a type of Christening to the family line, though there had always been whispered tales of infants that had been turned away and left to starve in the woods. Ardyn briefly thought about doing that with the baby presented to him. “How long did you plan to keep this hidden from me?”_

_“Until I had the data to convince you of its use to us.” Verstael was nervously proud of the creature, like a child that had scribbled their masterpiece on the wall. “I wanted to show you the finished product. It was your theory that brought this to life“_

_“My theory? No, I believe it was your obsession for your prisoner that brought this to life.” The infant wasn’t entirely unexpected, but its origins were. He had asked for mindless creatures to be mass-produced, not something so human.“Your timing, however, couldn’t have be better. Babies are in vogue since the birth of the Lucian Prince.”_

_The infant between the men wailed, harsh and screeching like a wounded animal not allowed to die. The baby was sparsely dressed -- nothing but a cloth diaper and hospital style identification band on it’s small fragile wrist. It was no doubt freezing against the cold ground._

_Ardyn was nothing if not flexible, and children always had a certain malleability that could prove beneficial. Truthfully, he used to like children long ago when he was a healer. He knew every nursery rhyme and lullaby that had been sung on Eos in the last 2,000 years. Ardyn scooped the child into his arms. It quieted against the warmth of his chest. “Does it have a name?"_

_"His mother named him Quicksilver."_

_A devilish look crept into Ardyn’s eyes. Recognition shined golden and devious. "How perfect. Do you know what Mercury does?"_

_"It causes mutations in the gestation period of butterflies. That and slow toxicity in mammals."_

_"Oh, it does much more than that." The baby reached up to curl its tiny first around Ardyn’s pinky and Ardyn was suddenly glad he hadn't fed the child to the wolves. “Tell me, little one, do you know the chocobo song?”_

\--

“I'm me! I'm me!” Prompto and Quicksilver screamed in unison as knees hit the floor. Two voices resonated from one body, chasing each other like snakes gnawing at their own tails. Synthesized and glitchy vocals drowned out his last screaming shred of humanity. His bones twisted and reformed. 

He gripped his head with his one good hand, trying desperately to push the sanity back into his unraveling gray matter. Dark liver spots of decay began to mottle his skin. The psychosis fattened the splattered discolorations into thousands of tiny spiders. Ardyn didn’t react to them, but Prompto knew they were real. They had to be. He could feel their barbed legs pricking his limbs as they scurried frantically over his body, chewing up shredded skin every time they moved. They crawled in his ears and burrowed into his bones. He tried to swat the imaginary creatures away from his insides, ripping his shirt with claw-like nails. He opened his mouth to speak, but the spiders quickly crawled underneath his tongue. “I'm me. I'm Prompto. I’m-” 

He quieted mid-sentence. His muscles gave out as he slouched until his forehead pressed against the floor. 

Then there was nothing.

Prompto fell far, far inside himself. The world passed by in stilted photographs, with someone else behind the camera this time. He saw the train as it barreled into hell. He saw Galdin Quay and his last peaceful moments looking over the calm sea. He saw himself as a child again, holding Luna’s letters in his chubby fingers and smelling the sweet honey scent of foreign blossoms. But mostly, he just saw four boys in a pristine car. He just couldn't remember their names.

Life swirled around him like a cyclone, but he was unaffected as he landed in the eye of the storm. Someone else, some bigger part of him kept him safe. If Prompto was allowed to know a thing like peace, it would feel like this moment. Though the angry waters reminded him of Altissia, the noise had ebbed away into nothingness. The silence was as pure as a newborn. Tiny tendrils of darkened thoughts pressed into his mailable mind, but there was no consciousness left to argue for his humanity. All that was left was a tainted sort of tranquility as his mind retreated back into the cold darkness. Prompto held on to the memory of an eternal road trip as he quietly fell away.

Something was wrong. So very very wrong. 

He felt as if he were in a dream, a trance -- somehow looking from inside his body but not understanding. He'd been the daemon inside an altar boy, and finally he'd been able to claw back into existence. He’d torn through to this side of existence with all the ferocity of an pent up beast. He raged, snarled and snapped his powerful jaws feverishly at the world. Sunlight from a lone barred window reflected off the cold sleekness of his bare torso. He turned from the light with a howl, showing his black mouth and serrated fangs. He wasn't Prompto, but something different, with a name that sounded like a curse. 

He wasn't even human. He was a photographic negative, a perversion of values and colors. The red undertones of pale skin had mutated into bruise-colored flesh. The numbers on his wrist burned brilliant white, the purest lack of color that seared into his retinas. He was somehow both an exaggeration and inversion of nature’s beasts. He stared at the splotch of burning sunlight on the floor as he tried to comprehend the reality of his existence. 

Patent leather soles tapped against cracked tiles. The quarter break of wool and cashmere refused to drag its fineness over filth. The dignity of a king echoed through the maze of stifling darkness. It was a sound and voice he knew. “Quicksilver.” Ardyn sang the name like a nursery rhyme as he walked towards the creature. “It's about time you arrived.”

Quicksilver responded without thought, his bloodless heart whirring at his master’s words. Each vertebrae stiffened separately as he stood and came to life a twitching, mechanized marionette. His neck popped and lurched like stuck gears as he turned sharply. His head tilted unnaturally far back, to the extent that the back of his head almost reached his spine. He observed Ardyn with red eyes that smoldered like nuclear waste. There were no words, no emotions. Just expectant observation from a mass of tangled limbs. 

“Come here for me, my pet.” Ardyn smiled, gesturing his arms outwards as a sign of welcome. 

Quicksilver skirted around the splotch of burning sun before returning to all fours. His shoulder blades rolled underneath the skin of his broad back as he crawled forth with the unquestioning loyalty of a wolf pup. Cold trails of darkness twisted off of his limbs and slipped through the floors. He didn't need bulk, nor form-- he was already stronger than any human. What any animal needed was a pack, a master, someone to serve. Quicksilver needed Ardyn.

Quicksilver followed Ardyn to the throne, scuttling cockroach-like in the wake of his footsteps. Isn't this where he should be? Beneath the king? Behind the king? Quicksilver remembered a king -- someone a little smaller, a little younger, with a line of delicate collar bones around the hollows of his royal throat. He could sink his sharp teeth into the creamy flesh and unwrap the windpipe like a present. Royal flesh must be sweet, but for some reason, Quicksilver thought of fish.

Ardyn ascended the tall winding stairs and seated himself on the centuries old throne of Nifelheim. Quicksilver followed in his wake, his spine curling nearly into a U-shape as he hunched like a gollum at Ardyn’s feet. From his place at the steps, Quiksilver saw just how far the emptiness reached. Through the lone window, he saw Niflheim’s skyscrapers as they lay toppled like dominoes. There was no glass, no wood -- just the concrete skeletons that had long been stripped bare by the plague of locust that Ardyn commanded. The cracked streets were littered with the remnants of whatever atrocity had occurred. Bloody corpses lay scattered like forgotten toys left by a messy child. The air was quiet and still like a tomb. No birds flew or even chirped. The world had ended and all that was left was Ardyn and Quicksilver in the darkness of the keep. 

Quicksilver wasn't afraid. Darkness wasn't scary to those who lived in it. He would be with his daemon kin, cradled in the alluring velvety arms of the night. It would be as natural as the blood that no longer ran in his veins. He could pluck the stars from the sky with his nimble little fingers and wrap up in the inky expanse of midnight itself. He could now be the little prince of darkness, perched regally on his tattered throne. His head would be adorned with a crown of bloodied thorns and he would keep a scepter made from Oracle bones at his side. He would be happy without the light. 

Ardyn raked his fingers through Quicksilver's jagged black hair. Despite his powerful body, his hair shattered like antique silk. Black strands fell around his shoulders only to dissipate into nothingness. Quicksilver rather enjoyed the sensation of having pieces of him plucked away. He idly wondered if Ardyn’s hands could manage to pick all the way to his brain. That would be nice. His brain probably looked like a tangerine. Maybe he could rearrange the graymatter like building blocks. 

Maybe Ardyn could make him less hungry. 

Quicksilver leaned in to Ardyn’s palms, kneading the floor beneath him and carving even spaced cracks with his dagger-like nails. He was starving for touch. It felt like it had been so long since he had been held tenderly. He wanted to feel loving hands everywhere: his face, his hands, his hair. He didn’t know why but there was some sad, lonely little something whimpering at his core. It hurt and Quicksilver didn’t want to remember the hurt. He let his mouth drop open and gave a purr that sounded like the grinding of gears.

“What a precious little mouse you are!” Ardyn's lips curled as he flicked his reptile tongue. He did much more than simply stare, he consumed. He studied Quicksilver’s carbon blade skin and ruby eyes with admiration. “I'll have to procure your armor else you'll wilt in the sun. The prodigal monster deserves something special, don't you think? Something that your father would have loved. Something your mother would have feared.”

Ardyn’s tongue pounded against his teeth as he spoke, Quicksilver couldn't focus on anything else. He wanted to tear the slick tongue out of Ardyn’s mouth with his bare hands and see if it tasted as tender and wet as it looked. He felt hunger build behind his steel ribs, the same hunger that always propelled him forward. He lusted for its next fix of flesh.

“-Of course, you're expected to take certain duties on board. Your birthright isn't without stipulations.” Ardyn layered double-entendres and implications into his speech, never wavering his calculated glare. He studied Quicksilver’s face for a sign of recognition. 

Ardyn enjoyed talking too much to a creature that lacked understanding. Quicksilver didn’t follow the monologue nor did he care. He had been reduced to the most primal of instincts: Fight. Eat. Kill. He wanted food and when he set his mind on wanting something, it became an obsession for him to track down and take with bloody desperation. There was a profound sense of lacking behind his ribs: terrible, constant and grinding. 

As soon as night fell he would go on the hunt. He looked forward to it like a child looked forward to candy floss glued behind their rotting teeth. He would play a little too if he had the chance. Meat was delicious, but it was better when the climax was prolonged. He had always had favorite type: beautiful young women with the durability of steel. The best ones were feisty, fighting right up to the time that he shattered bones and spilled carmine blood down shapely thighs. But the the best moment by far was when realization set in. Their eyes went dark as their minds took them far away. Lovely, voluptuous bodies always trembled like rabbits as their lungs fill with blood. 

Quicksilver had bided his time long enough. He’d already marked a pretty young thing while he was trapped inside the cage of normality. She wasn’t an oracle nor royalty, but still young and lithe with unruly blonde hair. She would undoubtedly be so delicious underneath all that engine grease, her flesh hearty but light on his tongue. He imagined her insides would be pretty and pastel, purple and pink with green tinged veins. He loved the idea of pouncing on her small fragile body, feeling weak limbs writhe as she failed to push him away. Quicksilver made pleased little sighs as he thought of dislocating her delicate spine with his boney fingers. Snapping necks wasn’t as loud as people thought. It was a slight tearing, more of a feeling in his hands than an audible sound. He wondered if she'd call for Prompto as she struggled. Maybe if he was feeling generous he would give Prompto the satisfaction of kissing her still lips, as red as the blood on his hands. 

He was getting antsy, excited, chewing on the ticking clockwork joints of his fingers as he squirmed. He was so entranced by his fantasy that his stomach rumbled in anticipation. Deep bass tones exploded from his core, painful in their emptiness. 

“Are you hungry, little Quicksilver?” 

Quicksilver nodded furiously. His head jittered erratically as if he was set on the wrong frame rate. Ardyn must have been biding his time for this moment, as he pressed something into Quicksilver's hand without hesitation.

It was a tangerine, swollen with fungus and dripping of decay. It weighed heavy and warm like a human heart in his hand. Quicksilver snarled at the gift. 

“Eat.” Ardyn pressed. He observed him expectantly, pursing his lips as he took in Quicksilver's features as they knotted in deliberation. 

Quicksilver obeyed Ardyn. He would always obey Ardyn. He dug his claw-like nails into the fleshy rind, fingers moving nimbly as he gouged out the rotten core. Black fungus and fuzzy mold sloughed off like dead skin. Putrid juice dripped brown and sludgy down his protruding wrist bones.

The tangerine may have been dead but in it decay it held life. Maggots crawled and writhed in between the stringy sections of pulp. Orange flesh had turned gray and green, driven to vicious malleable ooze, like the inside of his own brain. Fungus grew into swollen, heavy tumors on the nutrients of sugary juices. A bloated, gray Maggot lay curled up at its center. Quicksilver paused.

“I said eat, Quicksilver.” 

Quicksilver scooped up the worm with the underside of his nail. Its slimy body writhed in time with a human pulse. He slurped it up before tossing the tangerine at his feet. The maggot’s fat, slimy body exploded under his tongue and crunchy segmented body parts stuck between his teeth. It took the edge off his hunger a bit. 

“That's my good boy.” Whatever test Ardyn had in mind, Quicksilver seemed to have passed. Ardyn smiled softly, genuinely, with a tenderness in his eyes that was misplaced on the monstrosity before him. What he saw pleased him. “I knew from the moment I first held you that you'd be something truly special. Children always have a certain malleability that older humans lack.”

Quicksilver smiled back the best he knew how. He opened his mouth wide like a jack o’ lantern to reveal slabs of pointed enamel, too pure of white in his shadowed mouth. He didn’t know the word “human” but he knew what it meant to “lack.” That was what he felt now. The hunger was waning, but he was still missing something. It was deeper, more persistent and profound than starvation could ever feel. It tasted like fireside coffee and french fries from roadside diners. It smelled like sunlit leather and sounded like songs around a campfire. It was home in a crowded tent, bodies pressed together, holding one another through the nightmares. There was a memory of four boys on a road trip fighting to come to the surface, but it was never clear enough to define. Why couldn't he remember their names?

He looked to Ardyn to fill that emptiness shaped like crowns and handguns. The face he didn't have was still pathetically readable. He only had the simple desire to please and be wanted. He pressed his head against long unkept layers until Ardyn was forced to throw him scraps of attention. “Are you still hungry, little one? I do have something for you but be warned -- it may not be as warm as you'd like. It took me much longer than anticipated to pry you out of your cage.”

Quicksilver let his mouth drop open to give a response, but a synthesized snarl rattled the wall. His voice was mutilated. The words were discernible but demonic bass tones shuddered through his chest. He pressed has hands to his throat in confusion and defense. He wasn't sure why that motion seemed familiar. He had a memory of a king’s elbow at his throat in an unholy rage. Once again he looked to Ardyn for explanation. His king wouldn’t do that, right?

“I'll take that as an enthusiastic yes.” Ardyn flicked his trench coat as he stood. ”Come with me. I have another gift.”

He didn't need to beckon before Quicksilver was at his heels. Ardyn lead them through the light of the lonely window again. Quicksilver followed on his two feet to squeeze around it. His movements were even more twitchy and mechanical when he walked like a human, but he gained better control of his body with every step. He marched behind Ardyn where he belonged. They made their way to what appeared to be a foyer. Ardyn flung open the heavy doors with the theatrical flair of his arms. “Behold. Your gift. Your birthright.”

The smell assaulted Quicksilver first. It was almost sweet, sickly so, as it hung over the back of his tongue like a mushroom cloud. It smelled like liver, pâté, offal -- scraps of meat that had been left out just a little too long. It was metallic, like grimy pennies and cured meat. He knew the smell by instinct alone.

Corpses. There were half a dozen of bled out, fraying corpses slumped over like forgotten dolls. They weren't rotten, not exactly. They were molding from storage, but otherwise intact. Their bodies showed the ghostly pallor and blue lips of death. They laid with limbs and heads at awkward angles, but rigor mortis hadn't set in, despite the fact that their blood had oxidized into black puddles long ago. They were in a type of stasis, a testament of Ardyn’s ability to preserve. Time and rot had no power over the immortal.

Ardyn looked kindly over the disarray, like he was a father and the massacre was his darling child. He gave a gentle smile that reached his eyes this time, showing subtle wrinkles on his aged skin. “That one in the middle is for you, dear one. But please, don't rush. We have all the time in the world.” He gave Quicksilver a steady push to spur him onwards.

Quicksilver didn't need that push. The smell alone drew him forward. The stillness of the air amplified Quicksilver’s movements. His footfalls sounded like water droplets in a vast cavern as he stepped forward in long purposeful strides. The silence was a poison, a void in which atrocities were laid bare. He could even hear the useless heart in his chest, steadily beating in a gross imitation of life. He clicked and ticked like his entrails had been replaced with clock parts. 

He looked back to Ardyn for approval. The man nodded his permission. “Enjoy.”

Quicksilver cracked a little smile, his absurdly white teeth making his mouth look stitched together. Quicksilver straightened, putting even more power behind his stride. Every molecule of his being vibrated from the inside out. His guts writhed like the maggot he had eaten earlier. This was his birthright to stroll so casually and detached into the circle of death. He was the little Prince of Darkness with a mantle from hellfire. This feast before him? This was his to claim. He'd served his sentence in the cage of normality, biding his time until he had the chance to claim the limelight. This was the end of Prompto’s reign. Quicksilver was ready to play. 

If Prompto was made from liquid sunshine then Quicksilver was solid moonlight. He wandered from corpse to corpse, studying the dead bodies with cool detachment. His only regret was that the people around him were already dead. He was a hunter. He was better than a bottom feeder -- stronger, faster, more cunning -- but he felt like he was a scavenger the way he rummaged through corpses. But he wouldn't be able to hunt until nightfall because of the burning sunlight. Ardyn said he'd wilt. He would just have to consider the leftovers to stave off his hunger until dinner time. 

His boots hit the ribs of some fallen soldier as he stepped over the gnarled flesh. There were several old men with Niflheim crests emblazoned on their robes, most done in by stab wounds from Ardyn’s beloved silver knife. Quicksilver didn't recognize any of them consciously, though he found himself studying one of the older men. The man was dressed darkly, regal almost in its complexity, with a tattered mantle on his weary shoulders. Even the leg brace that hung misshapen around the man’s knee had been gilded in gold like the adornments of his suit. He had been bearded and gray, no doubt aged before his time. His face seemed familiar, but Quicksilver’s mind failed to conjure up a name or situation it related to. Where there should have been memories was a vast gray space. 

Quicksilver spoke for the first time. His voice lowered to a reverberating baritone. ”I don't want your sloppy seconds.” He used his new found words to mouth off to Ardyn.

“Ah. Just like your namesake. Toxic and volatile.”

Quicksilver rolled his eyes. Ardyn talked too much. He remembered another king, glum and tight lipped but much more incompetent. While sitting in the darkness, Quicksilver had imagined it was the sulky little Traitor King hanging from the speeding train. How he would have loved to have been in control with the sniveling little maggot’s life in his hands.

The Other King had already taken so much from him that Quicksilver had no qualms about turning the tables. Quicksilver had watched, boiling with bitterness, as Prompto changed their body, their diet, their entire personality to please the spoiled royal brat. It was no surprise that as soon as he became an inconvenience, Prompto had been thrown to the wolves. Prompto had been so cold, so lonely, so utterly heartbroken as he'd stumbled through the snow, waiting for his fairytale prince to come rescue him. But he never showed. That moment, that recognition of being abandoned, was what brought Quicksilver back to the surface. He was a failsafe, a way to keep both of them alive when the stress and pain became too much. The more he thought about it, the more he knew he would have left the Other King to fall to his death on the railroad tracks. 

But what was that King's name?

What does it matter what his name was? And why should he care what dragged him to existence? He was in control now. He was alive and he should celebrate by eating something dead.

He kicked through several waves of personal effects before he found the centerpiece he was meant to admire. It was a woman, the only female amongst the slain. She had been carefully laid out as a focal point to which the other corpses were merely accents. In contrast to the darkly dressed men, she was laid prone as if it were a funeral and not the aftermath of a psychotic massacre. Her lilly-white dress billowed around her like a soft cloud. Endless sheets of smooth silk framed her delicate bones. Her blonde hair fanned out around her face like a golden halo. She looked like a bride or maybe even an angel - some pretty little delicate thing that had a secret strength.

Quicksilver snaked closer. He could see how she met her death. She was not nearly as well preserved as she first looked. She had been brutalized. Deep purple bruises bloomed across her cheek like her last few moments alive had been punctuated by a slap. Her face was white -- not pale but white like she had been drained of blood long before she had met her fate. The finely woven whiteness of her dress laid in muddy tatters, the shirred silk across her stomach had been slashed through. Lines of thick coiled intestines peeked out from her stomach, kinking back inside her like fat, ghastly worms. Her blonde hair had been tinted green from ocean water. She had been battered. But she still shined nearly ethereal by some divinity. Maybe that was why he felt himself shake. 

“Do you know why you were named Quicksilver?” Ardyn’s voice echoed off the high stone ceilings of the foyer. He had a way of turning his voice into a nearly physical being that poked its dirty little fingers into Quicksilver's consciousness. 

Quicksilver didn't answer. He bit his lip until it swelled. Conquest of the worst kind called to him. She was a treat: beautiful and divine. He squirmed where he stood. He wanted to part her knees, to rest between her thighs like he was used to doing. It was the best way to keep them pinned down when they were still fighting. She was way beyond fighting now, so he had to settle for putting his knees on either side of her thighs. His weight settled on her stomach as his hands scraped along her pretty swan-like neck.

“-your mother named you after some pretty little nonsense. She didn't understand the implications-”

Ardyn spoke. Prompto clawed. Quicksilver ignored. He lifted the woman's head to face him. She was beautiful, honestly, so much that he felt a moment of hesitation as he stared at her perfectly sculpted lips. It felt cheapened. The thrill was in the fight. He dragged a light finger over her face. She was hardly a waif now with the blood pooled heavy in her veins, but she must have looked as sickly and pale in life. She had been weakened by some prolonged hardship. Slender pale collarbone peaked out from a plunging neckline. A single delicate necklace, silver and shining with small moon pendant fell at her hollow throat. Despite her beauty, her weakness showed. He doubted she would taste good.

“-Even your father who fancied himself a genius couldn't fathom why I kept the name-”

Quicksilver leaned closer, relishing in that last moment of seeing her face underneath his hungry body. He lowered his mouth down to skim his teeth along her neck. Beneath the stench of decay, he could smell the salt of the ocean where she had met her death. He pushed back her golden hair with his razor-blade nails, smelling the sweet honey scent of foreign blossoms. 

Underneath her matted hair, he found an unfamiliar blue flower. Its double-stacked petals fanned out like sunlight around a stalk of smaller blossoms in its center. The emerald leaves curled in on themselves. They were still springy and still very much full of life. This had been placed here recently. She must have had at least one living relative in the world who loved her enough to march into Ardyn’s lair just to leave a flower in memorial. Quicksilver plucked the flower from her hair and crushed it between his fingertips. It discoloration bled navy on his bruised-color fingers. 

“-because in the end, Quicksilver is known for its slow toxicity and its ability to destroy the gold of kings and Astrals.” Ardyn’s voice dropped an octave as he added the gravelly edge to his words for emphasis. His unnerving eye contact never wavered. He pinned the daemon before him the force of will alone. “Or in this case, of the Oracle herself.” 

The smell came again: the sweet honey scent of foreign blossoms. They tried to force a memory to the surface but all he saw was heavy parchment in fat fingers. Quicksilver’s eyes flickered like short-circuiting light bulbs. Blue then red then blue then red then-- “Fuck.” Quicksilver shook off the shock easier than Prompto, turning stiffly towards Ardyn. Quicksilver and Prompto both look at him with a hatred that could not be contained in one body. Prompto scowled. Quicksilver scowled as well. They agreed for once. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You were the slow trigger meant to destroy Insomnia from the inside out.” Ardyn looked coyly from under the brim of his hat. He had played the game impeccably, and this was its climax. Ardyn was the chess master, and the Prompto-Quicksilver amalgam was just a pawn that had slipped to the wrong side of the chessboard. “Unfortunately your mother ran with you prematurely and your father was never quite able to activate you. But look, I've had you this short time and already you're willing to defile the Oracle herself.”

“No! No!” It was a lie, another form of torture. He gripped his head, crying into the corpse-filled darkness. Luna? Prompto looked down and realized he was straddling her hips. Her dress was ripped and she was pinned underneath his shirtless body. It was like he was seeing the world for the first time. His skin was wrong. His hands were wrong. Was this really Lady Lunafreya dead underneath him? What the hell happened? What did he do to her? He sharply stood, crawling off of her, sobbing every time his legs jarred her corpse. He had wanted to see her in person after all these years, but not like this. Never did he imagine it would be like this. This was the Oracle, the one who died in Altissia along with every other thing he had ever loved. This was Luna, the very one who wrote him letters when he was a chubby child in an empty house. It was because of her that he had met-

Noctis. Gladio. Ignis.

He remembered their names. He remembered everything. Like a switch in his head he started to burn from the inside out. His head pulsed. His heart shook. His entire body filled with memories so emotionally intense he thought he would burst. In the golden hues of happiness he saw arcade games, sparring sessions, fireside chats. In the blue tones of regret there was blindness, destruction, four orphans on a road trip with no home in sight. There was a live wire taped to his every nerve as pain wracked his body. He recognized the corpses now. King Regis. The Nif Emperor. The Kingsglaive Soldier. And Lady Lunafreya. 

“No! I'm not--” Oh god. Prompto didn't want to admit that the words made sense. his fascination with Noctis from afar. His adoration of pretty girls to the point that he secretly took pictures of them. His insistence on rare steaks and that insatiable hunger. If he was truly meant to infiltrate Insomnia - then all those moments had just been Quicksilver lying in wait, biding his time. What if he had surfaced back in Insomnia? What if he had hurt Cindy? Iris? Noctis?

Ardyn stepped closer, cooing in delight. He showed no fear, even as the Prompto-Quicksilver amalgam screamed and snarled. “But like I said before, little Quicksilver. You were the most luscious fruit, I just had to cut you open first.” Ardyn reached out to stroke Prompto’s cheek, his fingers phased through the vapor that was now Prompto’s skin. Fingernails raked deep inside Prompto’s soul, violating him in ways he didn't know could happen. Ardyn jumbled Prompto’s thoughts, playing with the pieces like a child plays with building blocks. Prompto whimpered. Ardyn was in his head. Ardyn was inside him. 

Prompto saw his friends. Ignis, Gladio, Noctis -- everyone he had ever loved. He couldn't tell if they were really there but he reached for him with gangling thin limbs and finger tips that dripped venom. His eyes glowed like radiation, like blood, like sunsets -- like things that end. His skin was the blue-black of carbon steel that was only known to kill. He was a daemon, sprung full formed from the abyss, the little prince of darkness on his tattered throne. Their backs were turned and he was forced to watch as they left him behind. They never once looked back. They never once noticed he was gone. The skulls printed on the backs of their jackets faded more into the distance. 

Prompto, Quicksilver, -- he wasn't sure who was who. He wasn't sure it even mattered. They were both in misery. It didn't matter who he was, or what he was made for. He just knew he couldn’t live like this any longer. He saw the glint of satisfaction in Ardyn’s eyes and was reminded of the burning sun. 

He knew what had to be done. He had always been the worst fighter amongst the group, but he had been running ever since he first received Lady Lunafreya’s letters all those years ago. He couldn't fight Ardyn, but he could run and he could end this.

Prompto was thankful to be Quicksilver for this moment as he returned to all fours. Any being, man or daemon, or whatever the hell Ardyn was, could be defeated. It was just a matter of going one step at a time. He had never been good at pacing himself, but he could give it all in a burst of energy. He could be more than Quicksilver, more than mercury. He could be the lead fired from his own gun. The silver to bring down werewolves. He was the carbon that made up diamond and the iron of the holy crusades. So he ran -- ran past the bodies in their stasis, galloping past Ardyn and sliding on his knees to get past the door frame. Quicksilver’s body must have had joints like coiled springs as he bound across the cracked tiles of the hallway in powerful jumps. He found the one lone window and collapsed triumphantly in the scalding light.

He had been in the darkness for so long that the light burned. Beams of holy sunlight cut through his mist-like skin as he felt himself dissipating. His insides boiled and hissed like a kettle as he forced himself to stay still in the sunlight. He writhed, kicked and screamed as his very soul crackled against the sun like logs on a flame. The bits of blackened flesh danced like embers, rising in the plume of smoke that his daemon body produced. He was burning, burning alive. Condemned to die in the ashes without a single soul to miss his existence. He had lost control of everything else, but this -- punishing himself -- he knew how to do this. He had been practicing for years.

But death didn't come. Like all luxuries in his short life, it was denied to him. Release was cruelly subverted. Light restored him, however painfully, to his humanity. The first bits of actual human flesh appeared from the filth like burnt pieces of warped plastic. His body was trying to repair itself. Flesh appeared as withered as dried leather and the spiders he had hallucinated were his own freckles this time. When he looked back at his wrist, it was red but no longer raw. His shoulder had healed and but his sense of self remained in tatters. The barcode was back.

He didn't want to be alive. Why would the universe not let him die? Was this pain not enough? He collapsed on the dirty floor. Suicide was denied to him and the only alternative was to either wait for Noctis or wait for Ardyn to bore of him. Neither seemed likely. He was left to cry on the ground, half-naked and bathed in the sunlight like the day he was born.

Prompto heard familiar footsteps. Ardyn once again approached him, ready to pull him back into madness for another round.

“Please… please just lock me back up.” Prompto sniffled. He expected his voice to sound synthesized and mutilated, but it just sounded broken and pathetic. He didn't want to be free. What if it happened again? What if the Prompto part of him was forced to watch while Quicksilver brought all his darkened fantasies to life? Being left alone in his own mind was the worst torture. 

“There, there little Quicksilver.” Ardyn wrapped his arms around his trembling form. “You may still be good for something yet.”

Prompto eyes were blurry as he held on to Ardyn, not trusting his own feet. He nuzzled into Ardyn’s chest. He smelled like cloves and tangerines. His clothes were soft like blankets. “Please. I don’t want this to happen again.” His body was aching as if he fought a battle, but it felt so much more demeaning. He had been humiliated and abused. He had been betrayed by his own body and mind. He cried and through the tears Ardyn is all he could see.

He curled up into Ardyn’s lap, looking for comfort, looking for an explanation. Ardyn was a poor substitute for everything Prompto remembered from his King. But he needed something, anything. He needed the comfort of being held. He cried as he became himself again and Quicksilver was locked away for another day. 

Ardyn chuckled softly, patting Prompto’s back in mocking affection. “Why the change of heart, little one?”

What heart? Is he Quicksilver? Is he Prompto? He didn't know. But if he ever had the chance to see Noctis again, he was going to ask for sure which one he was.

_“Tell me that I’m the real me.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it guys! This is the ending! Thank you so much for all your support! I can only hope the ending lived up to your expectations.
> 
> Some notes: Ardyn's the only person besides Prompto in game that hums the chocobo song. Thought I'd exploit that
> 
> Ravus was the one that set up flowers for Luna's body.
> 
> Its been requested that I do a comfort first after all this angst. I've also had a request on seeing a Quicksilver "bad end". I'm seriously considering both of those, even thought my next project was originally gonna be Ardyn's so decline into madness. Any thoughts?
> 
> I take requests on my tumblr:  
> http://yourscientistfriend.tumblr.com
> 
> My betas Tumblr:  
> http://syb3rstrife.tumblr.com
> 
>  
> 
> Random person who talked to me a lot and I want to thank him:  
> https://chocobutt-trash.tumblr.com
> 
> He's also here:
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/users/invisibledeity/pseuds/invisibledeity

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can submit questions or comments at http://yourscientistfriend.tumblr.com/
> 
> Edit:
> 
> Here's my Beta! She's awesome!
> 
> http://syb3rstrife.tumblr.com


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